HIROKO set up as sacrificial lamb for Cris Cyborg

HIROKO

Last night Strikeforce announced that Cris Cyborg will defend her 145lb Championship against Japanese fighter HIROKO Dec. 17 in San Diego. It just shows what I already knew. There are no qualified opponents for Cris other than Ronda Rousey. And Ronda won't fight her for a while. And anyone who tries to tell you there are nine qualified fighters for Cris is blowing smoke up your ass. The only reason Zuffa signed Cris is she had another offer on the table. Sean Shelby can attest to how tough it is to find anyone to fight her. The most interesting thing about HIROKO is that she is a former dominatrix who got into MMA by accident. She is 5'11" which is very tall for a female. And in Japan, most of the female fighters are much smaller. Her record is 12-1 but her record is severely padded mainly because there aren't a lot of fighters in her weight class. In her early career in SMACKGIRL, she usually fought at Open Weight which means she fought at 170. So I'm sure she outweighed her opponents by a significant amount. JEWELS doesn't have an Open Weight division so she has been fighting at 145 for the last few years. The best fighter that HIROKO has fought is Hitomi Akano. And when she lost to Hitomi in 2008, it was Open Weight so I'm sure she outweighed Hitomi by 20 pounds. She beat Hitomi by split decision on a Mar. 2010 JEWELS show. That's a size mismatch but Hitomi is crazy and a great fighter. Others she has fought include Mongolian former pro wrestler Esui (inexperienced), Molly Helsel (size mismatch), Sandy Furner (Aussie kickboxer, no MMA experience), Atsuko Emoto (now retired pro wrestler), Yuiga (overweight pro wrestler) and midcard fighters like Yoko Takahashi and Super Benkei. Not great competition. And most of her fights have been by decision so she's not much of a finisher. Also, HIROKO has never fought in a cage, she has never fought under full MMA rules and she has never fought five rounds. In fact, she has never fought three rounds. Standard JEWELS matches have limited ground and pound and are usually set for two five minute rounds. So HIROKO would seem ill prepared for a match against Cris Cyborg. What she should have done a couple of years ago was move to the US and get training and experience that she doesn't have and won't get in Japan, especially in JEWELS. She won't be the first Japanese fighter to find that out the hard way. Maybe HIROKO should bring her whip from her dominatrix days.